Posted originally on the CTH on March 17, 2023 | Sundance
Before looking at the absurdity of the International Criminal Court (ICC) position, it is worth noting that Russia, Ukraine, Saudi Arabia, India, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, the United States and China do not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC and are not member states in the organization {LINK}.
Additionally, I doubt the countries of Kiribati and Malawi are going to launch a military offensive against Russia; so, one has to ask, exactly what is this latest production about – amid the theater of World War Reddit.
The essential accusation is that Vladimir Putin took orphans out of orphanages in the Ukraine war zone and moved the children to safety in Russia. Ergo, Putin is guilty of human trafficking and abducting children.
THE HAGUE (AP) — The International Criminal Court said Friday that it has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for war crimes, accusing him of personal responsibility for the abductions of children from Ukraine.
It was the first time the global court has issued a warrant against a leader of one of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.
The ICC said in a statement that Putin “is allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of (children) and that of unlawful transfer of (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.”
The move was immediately dismissed by Moscow. […] Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia doesn’t recognize the ICC and considers its decisions “legally void.” He called the court’s move “outrageous and unacceptable.” Peskov refused to comment when asked if Putin would avoid making trips to countries where he could be arrested on the ICC’s warrant.
[…]Lvova-Belova, who was also implicated in the warrants, reacted with dripping sarcasm. “It is great that the international community has appreciated the work to help the children of our country, that we do not leave them in war zones, that we take them out, we create good conditions for them, that we surround them with loving, caring people,” she said. (read more)
Posted originally on the CTH on March 17, 2023 | Sundance
U.S. government officials are not happy as China confirms Chairman Xi Jinping visit to Russia next week to meet with President Putin.
In the background of the Ukraine conflict, smiling Panda has been happy to see distracted western nations bleeding their resources and treasury in support of Ukraine. Meanwhile, happy Panda negotiates and brokers increased relationships between Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, India and China.
There is no downside to Chairman Xi visiting Russia and advancing a position that ‘peaceful negotiations’ should begin between Russia and Ukraine, unless a resolution to the conflict is against the geopolitical usefulness of the war – which appears to be the unfortunate current status.
“The U.S. on Friday said it would oppose any effort by China at the meeting to propose a ceasefire in Ukraine“…
Think about that. Remember, Ukraine is to Washington DC as North Korea is to Beijing.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Chinese President Xi Jinping plans to visit Moscow next week, offering a major diplomatic boost to Russian President Vladimir Putin on the same day the International Criminal Court announced it wants to put the Russian leader on trial for alleged war crimes.
Xi’s visit was the latest sign of Beijing’s emboldened diplomatic ambitions, and came amid sharpening East-West tensions over the war in Ukraine, now in its 13th month. The U.S. on Friday said it would oppose any effort by China at the meeting to propose a ceasefire in Ukraine as the “ratification of Russian conquest.”
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby encouraged Xi to reach out to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to get his country’s perspective on the war and avoid any “one-sided” proposals.
China has sought to project itself as neutral in the conflict, even while it has refused to condemn Moscow’s aggression and declared last year that it had a “no-limits” friendship with Russia. Beijing has denounced Western sanctions against Moscow, and accused NATO and the United States of provoking Putin’s military action.
Throughout the conflict, China has said the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries should be respected. It remains unclear, however, whether it sympathizes with Moscow’s claims to seized Ukrainian territory.
[…] Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday that Putin and Xi would have a one-on-one meeting over an informal dinner Monday. Broader talks involving officials from both countries on a range of subjects are scheduled for Tuesday.
Putin’s foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov, suggested the talks could yield new approaches to the fighting in Ukraine. “I’m sure that our leader and the Chinese leader will exchange their assessments of the situation” there, he said. “We shall see what ideas will emerge after that.” (read more)
All the Neocons point to Ronald Reagan. In this same interview, Graham asked, “What would Ronald Reagan do?” Liz Cheney recently criticized DeSantis for saying Ukraine should not be a priority by invoking the Reagan card. Her dad even ran on a platform of wanting to exemplify Reagan’s policies as his own. Reagan was against communism, but the current conflict has absolutely nothing to do with communism or a fallen empire.
Ronald Reagan was the most respected Republican president since Abraham Lincoln. The Neocons, like Graham, effectively stand for everything that Reagan rejected. When I wrote to Reagan warning in 1985 that the formation of what became the G5 would lead to a crash by 1987, he ordered the Chief Economic Adviser Mr. Sprinkle to respond to me directly.
Reagan initiated the arms race to outspend the USSR during the Cold War. This too was a proxy war against the generally democratic Western bloc and the Communist Eastern bloc. He tried to avoid direct battle with the USSR as he was said to be fearful, rightly so, of nuclear war. Senators were not advocating shooting down planes, and causalities remained minimal as far as war is concerned.
Jonathan Clarke and Stefan Halper wrote in “America Alone: The Neoconservatives and the Global Order” that Republicans have “attached a Reagan bumper sticker to their motorcade [but they] ignore much of the substance: the intense arms control commitment, the summitry, the minimal use of direct American military power.” Gene Healy published an article for the CATO Institute: “Reagan Was No Neocon.”Reagan wanted to protect American democracy, but he did not want to act as a missionary spreading democracy to foreign countries.
Margaret Thatcher famously said that Reagan won the Cold War without firing a single bullet. When reading his eulogy, Thatcher did not describe a warmonger.
"Yet his ideas, so clear, were never simplistic. He saw the many sides of truth. Yes, he warned that the Soviet Union had an insatiable drive for military power and territorial expansion, but he also sensed that it was being eaten away by systemic failures impossible to reform. Yes, he did not shrink from denouncing Moscow’s evil empire, but he realized that a man of good will might nonetheless emerge from within its dark corridors.
So the president resisted Soviet expansion and pressed down on Soviet weakness at every point until the day came when communism began to collapse beneath the combined weight of those pressures and its own failures. And when a man of good will did emerge from the ruins, President Reagan stepped forward to shake his hand and to offer sincere cooperation.
Nothing was more typical of Ronald Reagan than that large-hearted magnanimity, and nothing was more American.
Therein lies perhaps the final explanation of his achievements. Ronald Reagan carried the American people with him in his great endeavours because there was perfect sympathy between them. He and they loved America and what it stands for: freedom and opportunity for ordinary people."
Ronald Reagan would be appalled to see how his own party tosses around his name to promote murder. Reagan would not sacrifice domestic policy, send “blank checks” to Ukraine, or push America into a global war with nations that have comparable nuclear capability. So what would Reagan do? He would prioritize his own nation and end this complete nonsense.
Posted originally on the CTH on March 15, 2023 | Sundance
Senator Lindsey Graham (U-DC) is trying to get the Libyan band back together as part of the effort to escalate a NATO war against Russia. In the latest development, according to the U.S. version of events, Russia took down a Reaper drone over the Black Sea:
The MQ-9 Reaper drone was making a routine flight before it was intercepted by two Russian Su-27 fighter jets on Tuesday. The warplanes dumped jet fuel on the drone and flew in front of it in a “reckless, environmentally unsound and unprofessional manner,” according to a statement from U.S. European Command.
One of the Russian aircraft then struck the drone’s propeller, rendering it unflyable and prompting U.S. operators to ditch it in the Black Sea. (link)
The Russian version of events outlines something akin to Russian pilots throwing a Pepsi at it. As relayed by Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov:
[…] “I explained the position of the Russian Federation,” Antonov said. “I stressed that the American UAV that was moving deliberately and provocatively towards the Russian territory with its transponders turned off violated the boundaries of the temporary airspace regime established for the special military operation, which was communicated to all concerned users of international airspace in accordance with international norms.”
“At the same time,” he added, “the Russian fighters scrambled to identify the intruder did not use on-board weapons or come into contact with the UAV.”
“The unacceptable actions of the United States military in the close proximity to our borders are cause for concern,” Antonov said. “We are well aware of the missions such reconnaissance and strike drones are used for.” […] “What do they do thousands of miles away from the United States? The answer is obvious – they gather intelligence which is later used by the Kiev regime to attack our armed forces and territory,” Antonov said.
[…] “Let us ask a rhetorical question: if, for example, a Russian strike drone appeared near New York or San Francisco, how would the US Air Force and Navy react? I am quite confident that the US military would act in an uncompromising way and would not allow its airspace or territorial waters to be breached,” Antonov said. “We proceed from the fact that the United States will refrain from further speculations in the media landscape and stop making sorties near the Russian borders,” he added. (link)
The United States govt/military justified their operation near the Russian border by saying we patrol everywhere in the globe doing these surveillance missions, so the Russians just need to stop being so sensitive:
[…] U.S. Air Forces in Europe – Air Forces Africa routinely fly aircraft throughout Europe over sovereign territory and throughout international airspace in coordination with applicable host nation and international laws. In order to bolster collective European defense and security, these missions support Allied, partner, and U.S. national objectives. (link)
And, of course, Senator Lindsey Graham demands an immediate U.S. declaration of war against Russia:
Two potential GOP candidates for the 2024 US election want to pull America out of the proxy war overseas. This sentiment is not within party lines as Neocons have infiltrated both major political parties as they profit off of war. Trump was extremely vocal about his distaste for the war and has been anti-war in general since he came on the scene. DeSantis finally confirmed his position by saying the “territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia” is not a “vital national interest” for the US.
DeSantis said that peace should be the objective. “The Biden administration’s virtual ‘blank check’ funding of this conflict for ‘as long as it takes,’ without any defined objectives or accountability, distracts from our country’s most pressing challenges,” the 44-year-old politician argued. DeSantis plainly said that objective for peace is in the best interest for the US, as additional funding “would risk explicitly drawing the United States into the conflict and drawing us closer to a hot war between the world’s two largest nuclear powers. That risk is unacceptable.”
Trump boasted of his past diplomatic relations with Putin. He was in fact one of the only recent US presidents to establish diplomatic relations with “unfriendly countries.” “Before I even arrive at the Oval Office, I will have the disastrous war between Russia and Ukraine settled. …I will get the problem solved. And I will get it solved in rapid order and it will take me no longer than one day,” Trump said. “I know exactly what to say to each of them.” Trump has also stated that the problem is primarily a European one, hence his repeated efforts to cut America’s NATO spending.
Both men stated that sending billions of dollars to a foreign nation is unacceptable when we are unable to care for our own people. Why should we sacrifice domestic policy for a foreign one that does not benefit the taxpaying people? This issue may separate Trump and DeSantis from other GOP hopefuls. It is another reason to question if the powers that be will even permit us to have an election next year since the GLOBAL plan is to reset the world.
This is the former adviser to Zelensky, Alexey Arestovich, who quit in protest. He has publicly stated that “The west deceived Russia. They promised not to push NATO to the east, and they did. They turned Ukraine into a huge anti-Russian country. If I was in Russia’s shoes, I would have done the exact same thing.”
The West’s Neocons have exploited Ukraine to wage war against Russia, for the sole reason they hated Russia, and even with the fall of the USSR, they have never changed their views. They tried to stop Reagan from meeting Gorbachev. I found myself back in 1999 to seize control of Russia by having the bankers, led by Edmond Safra, blackmail Yeltsin to step down and hand Russia to the boy, Boris Berezovsky. They tried to get me to invest $10 billion into their Hermitage Capital Management. When I refused, even Boris tried to call me to persuade me to contribute to their cause. When I refused, Edmond stole $1 billion I had on deposit at his bank and the NY press supported the Neocons, as always.
Ironically, they began their manipulation of Ukraine in 2014. It was the Neocons, not the CIA with this plot. John McCain was there meeting even with the Neo-Nazis in public and promising the crowd that America will stand with them if they overthrow their government – Regime Change has always been their agenda. It has NEVER worked out even once – Vietnam, Iraq, Syria, Cuba, and Ukraine just to mention a few.
Posted originally on the CTH on March 13, 2023 | Sundance
Thousands of protesters took to the streets in Moldova yesterday, wanting to express their opinion that NATO escalating hostilities against Russia is only going to mean further regional crisis, conflict and likely bloodshed.
There is a significant amount of support for Russia within the country of Moldova, but that presents a problem for the western alliance, specifically NATO, as the peace demand runs against their interests. As a result, Russia is blamed for inspiring the street protests against NATO escalation.
When the U.S. activates NGOs in European countries (Moldova, Hungary, Georgia) the media call it “spreading democracy.” However, when the people who live in the country organically rise up in the opposite direction against the government outcomes from the NGO pressure, the media call it “Russian interference.” NBC pushes the NATO message:
(Via NBC) – Police in Moldova said they foiled a plot by groups of Russia-backed actors who were trained to cause mass unrest during a Sunday protest against the country’s new pro-Western government.
The head of Moldova’s police, Viorel Cernauteanu, said in a news conference that an undercover agent had infiltrated groups of “diversionists,” some Russian citizens, who allegedly were promised $10,000 to organize “mass disorder” during the protest in the capital, Chisinau. Seven people were detained, he said.
Separately, police said they arrested 54 protesters, including 21 minors, who exhibited “questionable behavior” or were found to be carrying prohibited items, including at least one knife.
The protest Sunday is one of several held in recent weeks organized by a group calling itself Movement for the People, which is backed by Moldova’s Russia-friendly Shor Party, which holds six seats in the country’s 101-seat legislature.
The demonstrators are demanding that the government fully cover the costs of winter energy bills and to “not involve the country in war.” They have repeatedly called on President Maia Sandu to step down.
[…] Moldova’s border police also said Sunday that 182 foreign nationals in the last week have been denied entry into Moldova, including a “possible representative” of Russia’s Wagner Group, the private military company that is fighting in Ukraine, Moldova’s war-torn neighbor.
The police announcement Sunday comes just days after U.S. intelligence officials said they have determined that actors with ties to Russian intelligence are planning to use protests in Moldova, a European Union candidate since last June, as a basis to foment an insurrection against the country’s government. (read more)
China has maintained neutrality throughout the 13-month conflict between Russia and Ukraine/the West. Yet, Western powers continue to threaten China and allege they are conspiring to send aid to Russia. The heightened attacks on China make one question if Western powers are deliberately instigating a fight. CIA Director William Burns said he is “confident” China is CONSPIRING to send military aid to Russia, although there is no evidence of “actual shipments of lethal equipment.”
White House National Security Advisor and Neocon Jake Sullivan has had harsh words for China in recent appearances. Sullivan boldly stated that aiding Russia would be “a bad mistake” for China, and that the US plans to send China “a strong message.” Again, China has done nothing wrong. There is no evidence of China supplying aid to Russia, and even if they did, that is not a crime, as Ukraine is not a NATO member.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told the US that China would not heed to coercion. “On the Ukraine issue, China has been actively promoting peace talks and promoting the political settlement of the crisis. The US is in no position to point fingers at China-Russia relations.We do not accept coercion or pressure from the US,” Mao said. China will not support the West’s proxy war with Russia, but it seems that they are insisting China proves its innocence by ostracizing Russia.
This conflict could have been completely avoided had the Minsk Agreements been based on good faith. The war is a deliberate plot to usher in a new world order to eliminate energy-rich Russia from the global economy. The Kiel Institute for the World Economy in Germany estimated that $152.7 billion was provided to Ukraine as of January 15. The US has sent more aid than any other country but accuses its top trading partner of flaming the fires of international war. This is why there are no true diplomatic discussions with the current failing crop of politicians. The current agenda is to demonize Beijing as they did with Moscow to force it out of neutrality.
Posted originally on the CTH on March 11, 2023 | Sundance
In his weekly monologue, U.K pundit Neil Oliver takes the occasion of the 2023 Hollywood Oscar film awards to overlay the current state of theatrical horsepucky from the professionally political.
As the COVID-19 narrative collapses around them, the rulers who justified their fiats under false pretenses are naked to the sunlight of truth. The people are awake; the lies are easy to see; the gig is up; the bloom is off the ruse… We are watching, and the elites are not comfortable now. WATCH:
[Transcript] – Brace yourselves for the latest from La-La-Land. It’s the Oscars this weekend, another ceremony I used to care about in the world of before.
But for those who feel like we’ve been trapped for the past three years watching a bad movie with an unbelievable script, full of gaping plot holes and bad actors, I can tell you we’ve at least reached a good bit. Not the end, by any means, but perhaps a foretaste of comeuppance yet to be.
After the opening sequence the introduction of the characters establishing who were to be the goodies and baddies, after the setup and then the jeopardy and the darkness when all seems lost we’ve got to one of those bits where the audience leans forward in their seats in expectation of some payback, however slight and however brief. Anything to lift the mood.
I knew we had reached a good bit when I started hearing people talk about “limited hangout”. Have you noticed that term, yet? Limited hangout is more jargon, of course, spy talk this time, from the CIA and the rest of the secret squirrels, for what baddies try and do when they know, as we say in Scotland, that the game’s a bogey means the game is up and those fraudsters and tricksters and over-acting villains inside their hollowed-out volcanoes realise they might well have been rumbled and so start reaching for the back-up plan.
Limited hangout is a short-term fix when the baddies realise their trousers are starting to fall down. They’re not quite around their ankles but some stuff is definitely exposed and so those chancers are forced into buying some time while they try to pull themselves back together and keep going without falling over completely.
What we’ve been handed this past week or so all the high-excitement newspaper revelations are obviously what the baddies regard as the least damaging truth about what they’ve been up to, mere tidbits really, embarrassing but still the least of it. What’s been made visible to us now on account of the baddies’ zips being down, is therefore a limited hangout.
I will come back to the movie analogy in a minute but let me digress.
Billionaire financier Warren Buffet is credited with saying that it’s when the tide goes out that you get to see who’s been swimming naked. Ain’t that the truth?
Well, the tide is quite far out now not all the way but already we can see plenty of bare bottoms. We see you, Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer we see you MSM loudmouths and the rest of the ringleaders, in politics and elsewhere making a run for the sand dunes with your bits out. We see you. You can bleat and whine all you want about how hard you found the last three years and how much pressure you were under trying to keep up with an evolving situation, but you said what you said, and you did what you did and so much of it was wrong and lies and caused incalculable harm to millions.
What we are glimpsing now – even in the midst of the so-called limited hangout – is what we’ve known all along and that is the way the truth does, in the end, what the truth always does. Which is to say, the truth comes out.
There’s been a line out there on social media from the beginning, a meme, which has it that the truth is like a lion, the truth, like the lion, needs no protecting all that is required is for the lion of truth to be set free from its cage and then that lion takes care of itself.
The truth has a partner along for the ride, and that partner is trust. You can’t have the one without the other. What our so-called leaders and their henchmen in the media did over the past three years was abuse our trust to the point where it’s gone now.
As I’ve said before, trust is like a fragile vase. If you break it, you might manage to glue it back together, but you’d never again dream of putting water and flowers in it.
I started by talking about the movies, and movies are all about stories. An old story is The Boy Who Cried Wolf and we’ve all heard it … and we all remember it … because it’s true. It reminds us of what happens when foolish people sound the alarm without good reason. Out of a desire to attract attention and so further their own ends, foolish dangerous people cry wolf when there is no wolf. Everyone around them is briefly alarmed, fearing for their lives. But sooner or later they realise they’ve been had.
One day, of course, a wolf comes a real wolf and when that same fool cries wolf again no one comes to help. The fool is eaten by the wolf and why? Because they lied, and lied again, until the people who might have helped them had no reason to believe them, far less trust them.
Boris Johnson pushed nonsense about the danger of Covid. So did Rishi Sunak. So did Michael Gove. So did Jeremy Hunt. So did Keir Starmer and scores of others. They pushed nonsense about how to handle it as well, nonsense about Scotch eggs and stickers in the aisles of supermarkets, hand washing, face masks, social distancing and the rule of six. They pushed nonsense when they knew it was nonsense while they partied together, drank together and danced together and laughed up their sleeves together about what a bunch of mugs we were.
They cried wolf. Now there’s talk about pushing more mRNA jabs … next time for TB and smallpox and diphtheria and the rest. But what happens when billions of people have no trust whatever in that science, in those products from Big Pharma? What happens when the trust is gone?
More and more people around the world have stopped listening to scientists and stopped trusting scientists. They have also stopped listening to the cries of wolf. If a real wolf comes in the future – and there are more wolves out there than just invisible viruses – millions of people will refuse to listen to the alarm.
And now that the trust is gone, for so many people, more and more are questioning everything else they’ve been told by the same characters about what’s going on in the world. More and more people look at the lies and manipulative propaganda they were fed for the past three years about ONE THING, and rightly wonder if they are actually being told the truth about anything else about the war in Ukraine about the climate about immigration about the EU about food shortages about what’s being done to farmers all over the world about the real motivation behind the push for electric vehicles about the imposition of 15-minute cities.
Our so-called leaders knowingly talked nonsense that destroyed lives and turned society upside down and inside out. We know that … the people responsible are wildly exposed and cannot convincingly deny any of it. Why I ask, would anyone trust them about anything else? Liars lie, it’s what they do.
For now though, let’s, by all means, notice that it’s a good bit in the movie and we might allow ourselves to enjoy it.
It’s like when the money-grubbing lawyer in the first Jurassic Park movie tries to hide in the bamboo toilet stall only to have the T-Rex bite him in half. He’s strictly a minor character but he has put his own needs ahead of the helpless children in the movie, so it’s satisfying to watch him get caught, exposed by his cowardly nature, and gobbled up.
This is the bit when Alan Rickman’s baddie in Die Hard realises Bruce Willis is running loose with a machine gun.
This is the bit when Indiana Jones realises the big guy only has a sword, while he’s got a revolver full of bullets.
It’s important to remember the movie has a way to go yet. More clumsy twists for sure … more bad acting in the world of politics which, as we are regularly informed, is only showbiz for ugly people.
Here’s the thing: I sincerely believe that now the truth is partially revealed, if we can only find the strength to keep pushing … then the really, really good bits of this movie lie ahead. Like the bit in A Few Good Men – when Jack Nicolson plays the colonel in the dock and Tom Cruise is the underdog attorney.
Jack’s colonel does not like one bit being challenged by upstart Tom’s character about how Jack chooses to do what Jack does. Jack is angry enough to kick a puppy through a fan
When Tom finally demands to hear the truth about how a young soldier died under Jack’s watch. Jack finally loses it completely.
“You can’t handle the truth!” he roars and he evidently believes what he has just bellowed. He actually believes that Tom and the rest of the general population lack the mental circuitry to contemplate, far less to deal with, what he does down there in the darkness out of sight.
But it’s the best bit in the movie and Jack is caught out and his ass is grass and we know it.
When you get right down to it, his undoing has been no more complicated than that he has been caught lying.
Of course, the other thing we learn from watching movies is that it’s never, never safe to take your eyes off the adversary the first time they go down … the first time they seem to be finished.
We have to stay sharp and be ready for the bit when Glenn Close’s character is lying quietly in the bath in Fatal Attraction, eyes wide open and no bubbles coming out of her mouth.
Right when we think we’re safe, she’ll sit back up again with her yelling and her knife. We must pay attention.
More and more I think about the disaster movies – and if this isn’t a manmade disaster, we’re living through right now then I don’t know what it is.
I think about when the survivors step blinking out of the smoke and darkness to confront a ruined White House and a toppled Statue of Liberty … or a burning Big Ben and a flattened GCHQ. They realise, those survivors, that what they thought mattered was, in the end, just a house, just a lifeless lump of copper and steel, just a bell tower, just an office block.
Those survivors look around at the devastation, the receding flood waters of the tsunami, and realise they were caring about stuff that didn’t amount to a hill of beans. They get ready to start again with all that really matters, which is people they can trust, which is each other. If we have that, then we have all that we will need. Pass the popcorn.
I have created this site to help people have fun in the kitchen. I write about enjoying life both in and out of my kitchen. Life is short! Make the most of it and enjoy!
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